Janet Smith When SABC3 announced early this year that it was to screen a two-part South African documentary called Death, TV writers muttered darkly about a bleak society, an odious world view and the depths to which our national psyche had sunk. Then the documentary from writer-director Luiz DeBarros and producer Mark Schwinges won three […]
Paul Wilson FA Cup Final If Arsenal against Newcastle United has the ring of a real cup final about it, for all the traditional reasons, then it is also a final in which neutral viewers would traditionally have known which side to support. But if a week is a long time in politics, a couple […]
Krisjan Lemmer Mrs H Bingham, a resident at a Johannesburg retirement village, would like it to be known that her name is Henrietta, not Hugh. And no – she does not know the whereabouts of that aristocratic desperado, Lord Lucan. Henrietta has been inundated with calls from investigative journalists convinced she is Hugh Bingham, the […]
The demise of Louis Luyt as president of the South African Rugby Football Union is only the first step towards rugby’s rehabilitation as a national sport. There are many administrators and followers of the sport who, while accepting Luyt’s departure as a necessary expedient to removing an obstacle to the upcoming international tours, resent the […]
Mark Tran When Kirk Kerkorian started buying shares in Chrysler in December 1990, his closest advisers feared that the famously reclusive corporate raider had gone senile. James Aljian, who had worked with him for 25 years, declared it was “the stupidest thing I ever heard” and Alex Yemenidjian, Kerkorian’s right-hand man, thought: “He’s finally lost […]
Janet Smith Anand Naidoo spent his last night on a recent trip home to Johannesburg strolling famously through his old haunt, the SABC. He went to see his mentor Chris Gibbons presenting News Hour on SABC3, and came away impressed – and not a little nostalgic. News Hour is, after all, not quite the same […]
Saul Klein A business exists to satisfy its customers. But South Africa’s poor service attitude is an important factor in the country regularly being ranked near the bottom in terms of competitiveness. One component of competitiveness that captures our poor performance has to do with the market orientation of local business. Market orientation means designing […]
The end is in sight for endless banking queues, writes Charlene Smith The bank client of the future will hardly ever go into his or her bank. Indeed, today already the way to save on frustrations and bank charges is to bank electronically. Increasingly we are moving toward a cashless society with petrol cards, debit […]
Design and concept partnership Eleutheria has made a name for itself on the off-beat beat, writes Ferial Haffajee It takes courage to step out of the comfort zone that a salaried job offers. The pension. The regular pay-check. Medical aid. “It’s a jump into the unknown,” says Mark Smith of design company Eleutheria, which he […]
Dan Ncayiyana Right to Reply I feel constrained to respond to the letter by my friend and colleague, Professor Cecil Abrahams (May 8 to 14), in which he purports to write “in my capacity as an acknowledged scholar of African studies”. Whatever that distinction may mean (I am not aware of an academic discipline called […]